The Fethafoot Chronicles

Pale n Hora Nigrum: Pale Death At the Black Line

by Pemulwuy Weeatunga

Tasmania: ‘Trowena’ 1830: Identical twins, Sonni and Bobbi were having the time of their lives. They were the youngest in a family of six and their parents were at an afternoon ceremony, being held at the top of a thickly treed hill close by. On that dreadful day they saw the rumored-merciless, vicious ‘Ghosts’ for the first time – and now, their own and their parent’s slowly-lived, harmonious lives were about to change speed forever. The Fethafoot warrior, Gyor-bun is sent from Uluru to Trowena where he discovers, that even after calamity and violent death - as in Nature - there is always renewal and new life.

Description

My Clan’s name and its mysteries, have been kept out of public knowledge and history in my homeland of Australia. It’s the way The Clan work. To achieve their goals, secrecy is a prerequisite to safeguard the work and people. I, am what some in the Clan call the favoured, because I now have the power - via the written word, to ensure that our efforts are remembered: and not just by the Clan, or those few they have made themselves known to. For the first time in our extensive, oral history, we have a means to reveal the long and intriguing history of our covert Clan to other Australians; to the many new people’s who now call this majestic land home – and to the modern world at large. If you were born in Australia, you may have even heard such stories told around campfires and family meals: about the Australian Aboriginal magic man – or Kadaicha, as our Clan were named by our people many years ago. We call ourselves: The Fethafoot.
It was passed down, that the Fethafoot arrived here, not long after the start of time as we know it - in our now-Dreaming. This current era, which followed the Dream-time creation period. It was a time when the language creatures – humans - became proud and selfish. So egoistically insular, so quickly - that they forgot, why they were given time and space here for. Fethafoot warriors’ were trained to support the ancient Dreamtime design: to guide the very formidable language creatures toward dignity - and respect. Proper respect: for the heavens, The Mother-earth and each and every creature that depended upon their balance. Then and only then, it was said: their mutual connection with that holy trio, would assure balance and a healthy, unbroken Dreaming across our land. From its ancient beginnings, the Clan began to seek, analyse and utilise any and all martial-art, magic, weaponry or mind skill, that their information-hungry warriors came across.
Many of the elder, long-trained warriors were advanced in spirit-travel and did not travel via Shank’s pony - as the act of walking is often called in Australia: “how’d ya get ere mate? Ahh, Shank’s bloody pony Dig! Me bloody orse broke down mate,” they’d say. Instead, these old clever-men used the ancient Dreamtime ‘creation-lines’ running across our country, to move swiftly across their lands. Thus, in a mixture of fear and awe, real and imagined, the Clan came to be known as The Fethafoot: half-man, half-spirit beings who could come and go at will, leaving no trace: Kadaicha spirit-warriors; The dreaded Fethafoot.
This pithy glimpse will give you some idea of the enigmatic Clan - and you will discover a more intricate use of their unique gifts and talents as you read the chronicles – and as the need for their unique, various individual skills occur.
Please - enjoy my people’s pleasure in the telling of these legends. Although they are not in chronological order, they have been recorded as passed down, for all to enjoy - and to example the many unknown, vibrant treasures’ of our first people and our land’s vibrant past. It is a journey that will also take you into the mostly unknown, moral and ethical heart of my people, from Dreamtime to now.

About the author

Pem is a 63 year old indigenous man of Kabi Kabi Aboriginal and Sth Sea Islander Australian descent. The Kabi Kabi (Gubbi Gubbi), nation are caretakers of the mainland area from approximately – the Fraser to Moreton Islands area of the SE-Qld coast-line. Pem was born in Gladstone, Qld and worked for many years of his young life in the Qld Railways and construction industries in Queensland, moving to Aboriginal Health in his mid twenty’s and back to construction, until injuries forced him into trying an academic pathway in 1990. Pem began a BA – majoring in Literature and Aboriginal Studies at CQU in Central Qld at thirty-six years of age. He graduated ten years later while working for a university in the multi-media section. During this time Pem also gained a certificate in Film & Television production at AFTRS in Sydney. In 2004, after 14 years at a University Pem took his family to the Aboriginal community of Aurukun on Cape York, where he met Noel Pearson. Together with Tanya Major from Kowanyama, they created the Higher Expectations Program (HEP): a secondary scholarship, sponsored by Macquarie Bank’s philanthropic arm MGF, in an attempt to solve some of the huge social problems and high school dropout rate in the Cape’s indigenous remote communities. HEP is still working today and to date has 60+ university graduates – all ‘firsts’ from those remote communities. Currently, Pem has had to stop work, owing to several, severe construction work injuries and lives in Far North Qld, where he is in the process of writing several more fiction-fantasy tales. He plays guitar, loves and photographs the holistic world, writes poetry and songs about his people and world events - and tries to sing occasionally. Pem has four uniquely wonderful children and six fan-bloody-tastic grandchildren, who will probably take over the world. Thank-you for 'listening'. Pemulwuy Weeatunga (aka John M Wenitong)…